does X8 work with GPU's like Nvidia Tesla?

[Maclaw]

Hi guys,

 

Does anyone know wether MC X8 works with GPU parallel processing cards like Nvidia Tesla? These cards are very expensive ($10k +) - hence the question. 

 

Thanks in advance.

[Guest]

No

[Maclaw]

Thanks JP

[BenK]

It would be nice if Mastercam leveraged more of the GPU power. Could really speed things up.

[Guest]

I've got an 8GB NVidia Quadro... there's some spare processing available in there. :

[Jayson Kramer]

John, how do you know that it will not work. Just wondering did you know someone that had one?

 

James what card are you running?

[Jayson Kramer]

James you are running the Quadro K5100M never mind.

[Guest]

John, how do you know that it will not work. Just wondering did you know someone that had one?

 

James what card are you running?

This exact topic was brought up on the CNC Forum

 

IIRC, it was not utilized

[Bob W.]

I've got an 8GB NVidia Quadro... there's some spare processing available in there. :

How much would a card like that speed up processing or verifying of large files?  Both of the systems here have Nvidia Quadro 4200 cards (4Gb) and I was contemplating moving both of those over to one system and buying a Quadro 5200 (8Gb) for Kevin's system.  Would there be much time savings in that?

[MotorCityMinion]

'Both of the systems here have Nvidia Quadro 4200 cards (4Gb) and I was contemplating moving both of those over to one system "

 

I have 2, Quadro 4000s and thought I would try that.  Scratch that Idea. Nividia does not support SLI on those cards even though the tabs are present. My older HP Worksation also does not support SLI. It has to be supported in the BIOS, I believe.

[jeff]

The Tesla has no video outputs iirc. 

 

edit: 

nevermind, I misunderstood the OP's quesiton

[Jayson Kramer]

'Both of the systems here have Nvidia Quadro 4200 cards (4Gb) and I was contemplating moving both of those over to one system "

 

I have 2, Quadro 4000s and thought I would try that.  Scratch that Idea. Nividia does not support SLI on those cards even though the tabs are present. My older HP Worksation also does not support SLI. It has to be supported in the BIOS, I believe.

This how it supports SLI:

 

[Guest]

How much would a card like that speed up processing or verifying of large files?  Both of the systems here have Nvidia Quadro 4200 cards (4Gb) and I was contemplating moving both of those over to one system and buying a Quadro 5200 (8Gb) for Kevin's system.  Would there be much time savings in that?

Not so much time savings as smoother graphics, ESPECIALLY on larger files. "You want to rotate the part? Ok, no probem, done." (on my card) on a smaller card, "You want to refresh that ? Ummmmm let me think about that, oh more... refresh, oh, more, refresh.".

 

I've got some 58MB CATIA files from a customer that take 5min to load and are slower than any other files I have. It's just a hair choppy. Most people would never notice. I do because my rig is fast.

[MotorCityMinion]

My bad on that Jay. I should have clarified. Expecting a performance boost  from an SLI configuration using Quadro 4000s is not supported. 

 

 

SLI Modes
Split Frame Rendering (SFR). This analyzes the rendered image in order to split the workload 50/50 between the two GPUs. To do this, the frame is split horizontally in varying ratios depending on geometry. For example, in a scene where the top half of the frame is mostly empty sky, the dividing line will lower, balancing geometry workload between the two GPUs. This method does not scale geometry or work as well as AFR, however.

 

Alternate Frame Rendering (AFR). Each GPU renders entire frames in sequence. For example, in a Two-Way setup, one GPU renders the odd frames, the other the even frames, one after the other. Finished outputs are sent to the master for display. Ideally, this would result in the rendering time being cut by the number of GPUs available. In their advertising, NVIDIA claims up to 1.9x the performance of one card with the Two-Way setup. While AFR may produce higher overall framerates than SFR, it also exhibits the temporal artifact known as Micro stuttering, which may affect frame rate perception and input response.

 

SLI Antialiasing. This is a standalone rendering mode that offers up to double the antialiasing performance by splitting the antialiasing workload between the two graphics cards, offering superior image quality. One GPU performs an antialiasing pattern which is slightly offset to the usual pattern (for example, slightly up and to the right), and the second GPU uses a pattern offset by an equal amount in the opposite direction (down and to the left). Compositing both the results gives higher image quality than is normally possible. This mode is not intended for higher frame rates, and can actually lower performance, but is instead intended for games which are not GPU-bound, offering a clearer image in place of better performance. When enabled, SLI Antialiasing offers advanced antialiasing options: SLI 8X, SLI 16X, and SLI 32x. A Quad SLI system is capable of up to SLI 32x antialiasing.

 

 

[Jayson Kramer]

Thanks for the follow-up MotorCityMinion. I know from past I did not really see any improvements when running in SLI. Before this rig I am running now I was running dual setup in SLI configure two Quadro FX 4600,s. when I built this rig I went with one Quadro 4000 instead.